Paul Fisher, executive director of markets and a member of the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC), warned: "It's not impossible that we would see a quarter of negative growth. The ... UK tends not to be that volatile quarter to quarter but in this sort of situation when you are recovering from a deep recession it is not impossible."

Speaking to The Daily Telegraph, he said the recovery is on track but cautioned that "at this stage of recovery in a cycle it's always going to be bumpy". He added: "If you think back to ... a year ago, we would have grabbed this as an outcome of 2010."

Britain has emerged from its worst recession since the 1930s, contracting 6.6pc, and is not expected to return to pre-crisis output levels until 2012.

The recovery will continue to be slow, Mr Fisher added, but the risk of deflation has "diminished". He added that the biggest risks to the UK are now external – a fresh crisis in the sovereign debt markets, a spike in commodity prices or a collapse in US growth.

On restarting the Bank's £200bn quantitative easing programme, he said: "I would say the chances are less than they were but it's still not ruled out. It is most likely to be triggered if we have some sudden shock or lurch in the economy that is unexpected."

The banking sector continues to be a problem, with "relatively weak growth of bank lending to support an economy". He added that banks are likely to increase the cost of credit over the next two years as they refinance £500bn of funding. Of that, £215bn is backed by the state, according to the National Audit Office, and at least £132bn is being withdrawn by the end of 2012.

"It may well be that the cost of bank funding in the past was artificially compressed and it'll be a bit more expensive in the future now people realise how risky banks are again," he said. "And it may be that the lending to the real economy has to be a bit more expensive to reflect that."

He added that there was "no reason" UK banks shouldn't successfully refinance in the markets, without state support.